Electronic mail (“email”) is a form of electronic messaging that has proven a useful medium for several different types of communications. In particular, email has been used to deliver marketing messages to single recipients and groups of recipients.
Initially, such email-conveyed messages were expressed in plain-text format. One advantage of the plain-text format is that recipients can read such messages no matter what email client program (“email client”) they use. A significant disadvantage of the plain-text format is that its display is undistinguished and unattractive relative to other types of visual displays possible on many computer systems, and is in that sense poorly suited to direct promotional marketing and other high impact business communications. Furthermore, recipient activity with the message cannot be tracked, representing another significant business limitation.
As an improvement to text based messaging, email clients capable of sending and receiving more complex electronic messages have been developed. While this may facilitate somewhat richer and more colorful displays than plain-text format, such messages are typically static, not trackable, and still relatively poorly suited to achieve high impact with recipients.
Although in certain occasions it might be desirable to send complex messages including multimedia components to recipients, not all recipients may be capable and/or authorized to receive or view such messages.